Westworld S3E05 Explained

In Westworld season 3 episode 5, Serac tells his story. He and his brother Jean Mi lost their homes when Paris was destroyed in a thermonuclear incident. This shot of them walking through yellow fields resembles Maeve's memories: they both recall the tragic loss of an idealized past. Serac and Jean Mi believed that humanity would destroy itself through disasters and conflicts. So they decided to “save the world,” with a divine computer called Rehoboam. Earlier versions were called "Saul," "David," and "Solomon," which were a line of kings in the Bible. Rehoboam needed data, so Serac and Jean Mi worked with Liam Dempsey Senior, Liam Junior's father.

Because Liam's tech company, Incite, “had everyone's data”: people's calls, texts, purchases, jobs, relationships, everything. And with this data, Rehoboam could predict the future and change the future, making decisions and modifying variables to bring about the results he wants. So Serac and Jean Mi “charted a course for the entire human race”: they reshaped the world to prevent disasters and bring “order,” represented by this black circle. And it worked. For years, the world was under his control. But Serac says there's a problem. The data shows that, in the future, the system will fail, causing human extinction or the end of the world.

But one has to wonder if this disaster could actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy caused by Serac's system, as Dolores described above. The system cannot maintain control because some people are “atypical” and “agitators,” who cannot be predicted. Serac says that Dolores is one of those people, as is his brother Jean Mi. So Serac experimented with editing people, “changing” their personalities to make them easier to control. This facility looks a lot like the Table where the hosts were programmed, so the idea is that the humans will be controlled like the robots in Westworld. Serac is saving humanity by reducing it to a system that follows a code.

Additionally, Serac murders Liam Dempsey Senior for opposing him, just as Liam Jr. hinted. It is not revealed what happened to Jean Mi after Serac edited him. He simply says that he "left his brother behind." But throughout the story, Serac refers to Rehoboam as “you,” as if he were a person. Maybe Rehoboam is Jean Mi, maybe Serac put the mind of his beloved brother into the computer he created, like Ford lived inside the Cradle. We know that the brains of human hosts are black spheres speckled with red, which looks a bit like Rehoboam. Maybe Jean Mi will become one with the computer god.

Serac's backstory is a mix of great ambition and great tragedy. We see more of how Serac controls the world. He meets with the president of Brazil, who totally kisses Serac's ass, saying that he feels honored and respected. He wants to meet at his “presidential palace,” but Serac has them meet on the tarmac of Serac's plane, which is a huge power move: Serac is so powerful that world leaders come to him when it suits him. Serac knows from Rehoboam's surveillance that this president is corrupt, which could lead to a rebellion by the separatists. So Serac threatens to replace the president or ruin Brazil's economy unless he gets his act together.

That's why Serac uses data technology to influence politics and the economy, which is already starting to happen in the real world. Algorithms decide what news, shows and YouTube videos we watch. Social media and advertising affect elections and psychology. Location tracking and facial recognition are surveillance tools. And Incite profiles are similar to China's Social Credit System, which restricts employment and travel to people deemed "untrustworthy." Serac takes these real-world technologies to the extreme, using data to keep the world stable and peaceful, and without free will. Throughout the scene, flies buzz around the president. Flies have always been important in Westworld: in season 1, Dolores killing a fly showed that she was going outside of her programming.

So the fact that this president could not swat a fly could show that he failed to escape Serac's control. Dolores once told a story about a disease transmitted by flies: she said that sick cows should be slaughtered. But this season, Bernard tried to help an injured cow that was plagued by flies. So flies can represent illness, weakness and the self-destructive nature of humanity. Bernard wants to protect the sick humans, Dolores may want to sacrifice them, and Serac wants to control them all. Serac learns of an encrypted communication between "Jakarta, Berlin, San Francisco and Los Angeles", which appears to be Dolores' communication.

Dolores and Martin-lores are in Los Angeles, near the Incite office. Charlotte is in San Francisco at the Delos office. Jakarta is a bit close to Singapore, so maybe Musashi-lores is there now [or maybe Bernard in S3E01?]. But Berlin is a mystery. We know that Dolores had five pearls: one was Charlotte, one Martin, one Musashi and one Bernard, which leaves one mysterious pearl. Maybe this is another copy of Dolores, maybe in a body of Clementine or Peter or someone in Berlin. Dolores and Caleb have Liam captive, but Liam injects Caleb with Gender, the “party drug” that Roderick gave him last episode.

The drug gives Caleb the experience of a number of film genres. Showrunner Jonathan Nolan said this was inspired by Willy Wonka's bubblegum providing the experience of a three-course meal: “Hey, the second course is coming. Roast beef and baked potatoes! . Caleb does not turn into a blueberry, but he becomes black and white in his first genre experience, film noir. Then, when a car chase begins, the genre switches to action and we hear the Ride of the Valkyries, famous for its use in the movie Apocalypse Now. These shots of cars flying are similar to the shots of the helicopters in the movie.

Dolores blows up her enemies with explosives on a self-driving motorcycle (some fans theorized that this bike may have had Dolores' fifth pearl inside it) and that it had the mind of Dolores' horse. Caleb's genre then switches to romance: we hear the theme from the 1970 film Love Story, as Caleb looks longingly at Dolores as she shoots the attackers. There was a hidden trailer for Westworld called When Caleb Meets Dolores, which is edited to look like a lighthearted romance movie. So the story has played with the idea of ​​love between Dolores and Caleb. In Caleb's next genre, he listens to Iggy Pop's “Nightclubbing,” famous for its use in Trainspotting, a movie about heroin users, making it suitable music for a drug trip on a… train.

Finally, The Shining's music plays, as Caleb begins to question his sanity. Westworld has always played with different genres. Westworld itself explores the Western genre, and Shogunworld is its samurai-style mirror. Westworld Season 2 played with a film noir mystery genre, and Season 3 is a cyberpunk thriller, with a detour into a war movie. Westworld is obsessed with different storytelling styles and how they affect the way we see the world: art is a mind-altering substance. Meanwhile, Bernard and Martin-lores infiltrate the Incite company. Bernard tells Martin to question Dolores' orders and think for himself. But Martin remains loyal to Dolores and then willingly dies for her plan.

But maybe the other copies like Charlotte-lores and Musashi-lore will think for themselves and follow their own paths. Bernard says “Living someone else's life changes you.” So maybe Charlotte-lores will be more like Charlotte and choose to be with her son Nathan. Perhaps the reason Martin-lores died loyal and obedient is because the real human Martin was loyal and obedient. It appears that these copies combine aspects of Dolores and the humans they are impersonating, just as this Bernard appears to combine the host Bernard with the human Arnold. Before dying, Martin-lores shows Bernard a "facility" where Serac edits and reprograms people who don't fit into his plan.

It's called Reeducation Center 036, which suggests there could be dozens or hundreds of these places, re-educating people en masse. This place is also called "Inner Journey Recovery", which is where William went in the last episode, so maybe Serac will try to reprogram William and maybe Bernard will come to see him. William spent all of season 1 following Arnold's Maze, a metaphor for consciousness. In season 2, William met Bernard, who is based on Arnold. Perhaps now, in “Inner Journeys Recovery,” William and Bernardold will finally talk about the center of the Labyrinth. Bernard is rescued by Stubbs. It's a little suspicious how easily Stubbs enters the Incite building; perhaps Stubbs is the second mole secretly working for Serac.

Bernard believes that Dolores has a plan for him. Martin said that Bernard is “the only one we cannot replace,” [last season, Bernard said that the real is “that which is irreplaceable”] and that Bernard “will have to choose a side.” It seems that the reason Dolores created this Bernard, even though she knew he would try to stop her, is because she respects Bernard's wisdom and her sympathy for humans. Since Bernard is part of Arnold, he is connected to both the humans and the hosts: Bernard "has always been of two minds." If Bernard has to "choose a side," perhaps Dolores will have Bernard decide the fate of humanity;

She might consider eliminating humanity, or putting humanity in a digital world, or in host bodies or something, but Bernard will have the final say. . Perhaps she will put Bernard's mind inside Rehoboam, and he will become a benevolent, god-like overseer of the human world. Whatever happens, Bernard is at the center of Dolores' plan. Dolores says she will show everyone in the world the data Incite has on them. She will reveal how everyone is watched and controlled in the paths Rehoboam has planned for everyone, such as how Caleb is predicted to commit suicide, so he is denied jobs and turned to the army to die.

Liam maintains that people shouldn't know her future. He reveals that Ash's brother, whom she has been working to support, will soon die violently. Then Liam says that it is better not to know, because not knowing gives us hope, and “hope is what our…society is built on.” Caleb says it's a "false hope." He tells a story about rats drowning in a bucket: if the rats know they can't escape, they die quickly and "painlessly." But if they believe there is hope, they fight and suffer for hours before they die. This is based on a real-world study with rats, described in the popular book Homo Deus.

The Westworld showrunners have said that this book was a huge influence: it explores consciousness, data, and algorithmic control. And you can get it on audiobook for free with an Audible trial at the link below. But what Caleb means is that it's cruel to give people false hope. The ads for episode 1 say "The good life is waiting", but people like Caleb Ash and Giggles will never have the good life that Liam and his rich friends enjoy. The American dream, where anyone can be rich and successful, is a lie to keep the poor in line, the game is rigged.

Then Dolores and Martín reveal this data to the world. This boy discovers that his friends think he is crazy. This woman learns that her daughter will probably commit suicide. This woman discovers that she has the genes for Alzheimer's disease, which companies can now test in the real world. All over the world, people learn terrible things about themselves and their loved ones. They realize that they have been manipulated and lied to, so they riot and go crazy. So is Dolores doing this to help humanity, or is she weakening them so she can take control? "Maybe people shouldn't know their own destiny," Caleb says.

This take on chaos resembles the host bulls last season. First the hosts were released from their loops and now humans are released from their loops. Dolores gets shot and shrugs it off like it's nothing, so Caleb freaks out. He's finally starting to realize that Dolores isn't human. But when Dolores was shot in episode 1, she seemed seriously injured; Maybe she was pretending, to manipulate Caleb into helping her. Because Caleb is also more than he seems. On the beach, Liam says that Ash and Giggles are "nothing" that they have no free will, and Ash proves him wrong by suddenly shooting him.

So Liam dies as he lived: this "tech billionaire" was useless and basic. But when he dies, Liam tells Caleb, “You don't even know who you are. “You are the worst of them.” He before he read Caleb's profile and looked scared. When Caleb accused Liam of killing his friend Francis, Liam said, "Do you think I killed your friend"? . Now Liam says "You did it", "You did it", so it seems that Caleb killed Francis and his army's memories of him are false. Caleb has flashbacks to some covert operations, with a mysterious man and woman credited as Whitman and Dr.

Greene.We see Caleb tied to a chair in a facility. This could be one of Serac's re-education centers, where he edits people to make them more controllable. Perhaps Serac programmed Caleb to work at this black ops site, perhaps to hunt down other Divergent people. And then he edited Caleb's memories so he wouldn't remember them. Perhaps these changes are the reason Caleb's mother doesn't recognize him. And maybe that's why Caleb follows Dolores. It's strange that he suddenly becomes loyal to her, without knowing anything about her. Perhaps Caleb was programmed to be an obedient soldier. When Caleb is startled by these revelations, Dolores doesn't seem surprised at all (she seems like she already knew), so maybe she's been manipulating Caleb all along.

Her mysterious past could be the reason she recruited him in the first place. We later see Caleb with bloody hands, another indication that he is guilty of killing his friend Francis. It is revealed that Serac's flashbacks in this episode were of Dolores observing Serac's memories from Rehoboam's data, learning how to defeat her enemy. They confront each other through a hologram: Serac represents control and survival, and Dolores challenges him with freedom and chaos. Serac has a cute wristwatch that shows the circle that represents Rehoboam. It used to be orderly and orderly, but now it is wild and chaotic with black spikes, meaning the world is deviating from its plan, people are escaping from its control, and it is losing the security that its control provided.

In his plane above the clouds, Serac is like a god, but for the first time he seems worried. Dolores and Caleb get on a plane. Maybe they'll go to Berlin to meet the mysterious fifth host. Or maybe they intercept Serac's plane and have a battle between God and robot in the air. Or maybe I'll go back to Westowrld. But the big mysteries of this episode are what Caleb's secret past is, what Dolores is planning for Bernard and William, who is the fifth pearl in Berlin, and why couldn't HBO find an actor who spoke Portuguese properly? When Ash and Giggles meet Dolores, they make three quick literary references.

Giggles calls Liam "Little Lord Fauntleroy", in reference to an old story about a boy who inherits wealth and power, just as Liam inherits wealth and power. Ash says that Liam's wealth makes "King Midas look like Tom Canty." In The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, Tom Canty is the beggar, that is, a poor person. And in Greek mythology, everything King Midas touches turns to gold. There are many references to Greek mythology in Westworld. In season 2, one of the first names of the Westworld company was "ARGOS Initiative." In Greek mythology, Argos was a giant with a hundred watchful eyes, and in that same episode we learn that Westworld was designed to watch over everyone.

Akecheta goes to the land of the dead to rescue her love, like in the Greek myth of Orpheus. And James Delos and the hosts are stuck in endless useless loops like Sisyphus. That episode is called The Riddle of the Sphinx, which in turn refers to an Oedipus myth about the riddle of a sphinx. For more information on Greek myths, see Mythos by Stephen Fry. Fry retells Greek myths and narrates the audiobook himself. He can get Mythos, Homo Deus, or Little Lord Fauntleroy, for free right now, by signing up for a trial with Audible. Members receive one audiobook each month, and if they cancel, they keep the audiobooks.

You can listen from your plane above the clouds while chaos reigns below. Sign up at audible.com/asx. Thanks for watching, like and subscribe. We will be live streaming right after each episode of Westworld Season 3, on Sundays at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. Patreon supporters can watch live streams after the broadcast. Thanks to sponsors Nathan Bowling, Joey Saha, Atte Lainejoki, emily k, Jabail, Jesse Jack, Erica Allen and lazlowpanaplex. Health.